Yesterday a compromised server was used to attempt to get into my box. Thankfully I have an operationally mod_security and a damn fine firewall, that monitors mod_security alerts. This is a vital thing to have, especially if you have any compromisable software running. I do daily and weekly checks of my server to make sure there aren’t any things on here that shouldn’t be.

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Anyone whose pretty eagled eyed will notice the new Share This link just next to the comments link on each post. I implemented the Share This plugin by Alex King this morning in the hope of driving some more traffic to the website and allowing visitors to bookmark and posts they find interesting.

It’s quite a subtle integration into the posts, but I didn’t want anything overly obtrusive and ugly and Alex’s plugin does just that. I did change the default icon that shows next to the link as it was a little bulky and frankly quite ugly!
The link also allows you to email posts to people, which kills two birds with one stone.

Today I went ahead and updated PHP and APC to the latest versions. Unfortunately, WordPress and some of its plugins don’t seem to agree too well with either of them.
I rolled back to PHP 5.2.0 and APC 3.0.12p2 for the time being and will keep an eye on the software to see if any changes are made soon.
I did managed to get Suhosin installed though.

Over at Hawk Wings, they’ve posted a neat AppleScript to help optimize Mail.app
I ran the command line version yesterday to see if it sped Mail up, and it did.

ell application "Mail" to quit
set sizeBefore to do shell script "ls -lah ~/Library/Mail | grep -E 'Envelope Index$' | awk {'print $5'}"
do shell script "/usr/bin/sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/'Envelope Index' vacuum"
set sizeAfter to do shell script "ls -lah ~/Library/Mail | grep -E 'Envelope Index$' | awk {'print $5'}"
display dialog ("Mail index before: " & sizeBefore & return & "Mail index after: " & sizeAfter & return & return & "Enjoy the new speed!")
tell application "Mail" to activate

If you save the above code down as an AppleScript, you can then call that file in an iCal alert. I’ve set one up to run monthly to keep Mail perky and running smooth.

Just a heads up to anyone else who runs WordPress, there’s a new release 2.1.2 available.
Some versions of 2.1.1 may have been exploited by a cracker to allow remote execution of code. Upgrading is advised as a preventative measure.